When I was younger, I was a big reader and I read for pleasure a lot however as I’ve gotten older I have stopped reading as I never have the time to sit down and actually read a book. I tend to read romantic fiction, novels that are popular and ones that have been recommended to me by friends and family.
I felt that Room was a very enjoyable read and the story really intrigued me. I felt very involved in the story while reading it and throughout the beginning, I was interested to see how Jack’s language changed and how he came to have such a wide range of vocabulary. I noticed straight away that Jack personifies the objects in Room and this was one concept that really interested me as Jack pretended they were his friends however he had no real grasp on the fact that they were inanimate objects and could not be his friends. As well as this, it shocked me that Ma made out to Jack that everything he seen on TV was only TV and was not real, however the truth would have been too much for Jack to handle so I can understand why she did such a thing. I felt that Room was a very eye-opening novel as the things that happen in Room can happen in real life and it shows you the seriousness of the situation and how it could play out. I would definitely recommend Room to someone who hasn’t read it as it is a very captivating and eye-opening novel.
When I was reading room, there were some sentences that I had to read multiple times before I could understand what they meant. Because it is written in Jack’s point of view, some of the sentences are not in the right word order or the wrong words are used when describing something. As I have always been able to understand grammar rules and it just comes naturally to me, I found it difficult to revert and put myself in Jack’s mind. However, I feel that this will have helped me develop my skills as a reader due to the fact I had to focus carefully on each word and I had to figure out what some of the sentences meant before I could continue with the story. Reading Room has definitely encouraged me to start reading more novels again. I had forgotten how much I actually did enjoy reading until I read Room.
If you had asked me before, I would have said that the use of fiction would be a waste of time in academic study however Room helped me realise how a child’s language develops and how they come to understand the grammatical rules associated with the English language. Before reading Room, I didn’t fully understand what overgeneralising meant however I now fully grasp the concept.
